In November 1938 a 17-year-old Polish Jew Herschel Grynszpan, driven to distraction by the treatment of his parents in Germany by the Nazis, shot and killed a member of the German Embassy staff in Paris.

Immediate retaliation followed, a massive, bloody and brutally-concerted attack on Jewish families, businesses and synagogues throughout Nazi-controlled areas of Europe which began on the night of November 9 and continued into the next day.

It became known as Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass) and Tippett's 60-odd-minute oratorio covers both events, although it is essentially what has been described as an impassioned protest against the conditions that make persecution possible.

A conscientious objector and imprisoned in 1943 because of it, Tippett began writing the work two days after the outbreak of war on September 3, 1939, taking two years to complete it.

Initially he asked TS Eliot to write the text but the poet declined after studying the composer's detailed synopsis, saying it would be better if Tippett wrote his own libretto, so he did.

Premiered in 1944, it sounds deceptively simple musically, while the incorporation of five Negro Spirituals, in the manner if a Bach chorale in his Passion settings, was little short of sheer inspiration.

Steal Away, Nobody Knows the Trouble I See, Go Down, Moses, O By and By and Deep River are often performed separately, but make considerably more impact in their Child of Our Time context.

To coincide with the performance, Oratorio Chorus members have researched material for a Kristallnacht 70th anniversary exhibition, unveiled for nine days at Sheffield Cathedral last Saturday.

It includes images of events, how it was reported in the Sheffield Telegraph and The Star, a specially-written piece by Nazi Germany authority Prof Sir Ian Kershaw, now retired from Sheffield University, how Tippett came to write the work and Sheffield's role as a city of sanctuary for refugees and asylum seekers.

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